Chelsea drop out of Europe’s elite – finding a way back will not be easy

Antonio Conte, expected to be the next manager, will arrive to find a squad crammed with faded champions, underachievers, stopgaps, prospects and journeymen – restoring the team to past glories may be easier said than done

Eden Hazard has struggled to repeat the form that made him the double player of the year last season and could be on his way in the summer.
Photograph: Tom Jenkins for the Guardian

It says much about the downsizing of expectations at Chelsea that there was no profound sense of shock at elimination from Europe. Guus Hiddink emerged post-match on Wednesday to acknowledge a period of “transition” awaits, one he will not oversee himself, while, out on the touchline, his stand-in captain was reflecting on the ramifications of life on the outside looking in.

It was as if all this had long been grudgingly anticipated. “It’s a huge competition, one of the reasons players come to this club,” Branislav Ivanovic said. “People dream about playing Champions League football and this dream is over for the moment. We all hope we are going to be a strong team next season so we can fight to get back into this competition …” He did not follow that up with a “but”, largely because it went implied.

Roman Abramovich’s club are at a crossroads. For the first time in 14 seasons under the oligarch’s ownership they will begin a campaign outside Europe’s elite in August when, presumably, Antonio Conte will survey the Premier League landscape from the home dugout at Stamford Bridge. The notion trotted out, usually when considering the potentially unique nature of the title challenges being mustered by Leicester City or Tottenham Hotspur, is that Chelsea will be back stronger than ever next term, eager to put this aberration of a season behind them; that theirs will be a fleeting period out of contention.

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It is a dangerous assumption to make, even if based on the notion Abramovich tends to throw money at any problem. Perhaps that will be the strategy again, turning a blind eye to the reality this is a club making plans for the outrageously expensive redevelopment of Stamford Bridge. Only last summer the Premier League winners had hoped, albeit belatedly and fleetingly, to lure Paul Pogba from Juventus for a British record £78m. Yet, while money tends to talk in football, there is understandable concern within both squad and hierarchy that a lack of Champions League football will dampen prospective recruits’ enthusiasm for moving to the club.

That would leave Chelsea competing for lower pedigree players in a riskier market, for all that Conte is understood to be pressing the merits of Edinson Cavani, on the fringes at Paris Saint-Germain, and Roma’s Radja Nainggolan. Even at inflated prices, they would not necessarily be purchasing guaranteed quality. Outgoing transfers would normally part-fund an overhaul, with players such as Oscar, Nemanja Matic and Loïc Rémy likely to be available, if only on the quiet. Although there is no real appetite to sell either player, it is not outlandish to contemplate Diego Costa agitating for a return to Spain, or Eden Hazard pining for an opportunity in La Liga, though whether even Real Madrid would go as high as £50m for a player – on £200,000 a week and contracted to 2020 – whose form has spluttered all season is open to debate.

Even if funds are provided or generated to offer leeway, however, is there much evidence to suggest Chelsea would spend the money effectively to transform this team into contenders? If the “palpable discord” of the latter days of José Mourinho’s tenure drew the focus in December, then the deficiencies of the club’s scattergun recruitment policy, overseen by the technical director Michael Emenalo, must come under scrutiny now. In the summer of 2014, when Mourinho’s agent Jorge Mendes had facilitated Costa’s arrival from Atlético Madrid and negotiations with Darren Dein over Cesc Fàbregas had been so swiftly concluded, Chelsea’s transfer policy had been their strength. Now it feels confused, a muddle played out while players such as mich, Romelu Lukaku and Ryan Bertrand excel elsewhere.

Of the nine senior players signed in the past three windows, four were in the squad who lost to PSG, the home side’s lineup forced to include a young left winger, Kenedy, as an emergency full-back to counter Ángel Di María and Lucas Moura. Mendes and Mourinho were culpable for Radamel Falcao’s unproductive but always risky loan move. More prominent of late has been the influence of Kia Joorabchian, in securing a hefty fee for Ramires from Jiangsu Suning – he had previously helped secure Willian and Oscar – but also in the signing of Matt Miazga from New York Red Bulls and, more mystifyingly, Alexandre Pato from Corinthians.

At a time when Chelsea are pinned to mid-table, where was the logic in recruiting a 26-year-old Brazilian who was always going to require six weeks of intensive “pre-season” fitness work even to make the bench? Moreover, what kind of message does that send out to Dominic Solanke, Isaiah Brown, Patrick Bamford, Victor Moses or any of the other forwards in exile, or even Tammy Abraham among the in-house junior ranks? That betrayed a lack of long-termism which hardly bodes well.

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This is a squad bloated with fringe players. There may be sound thinking to loaning out youngsters with bright futures so they gain first-team opportunities outside a poorly regarded under-21 development league, but Chelsea have not just brought in youth. Papy Djilobodji is 27 and was apparently purchased as a back-up but, by the time he was needed with John Terry and Kurt Zouma injured, he had been loaned out to Werder Bremen. Michael Hector is 23 and by no means a regular in Reading’s Championship squad. He anticipates linking up with Chelsea for their pre-season tour but is Conte really going to be leaning on him or Miazga at centre-half next term with Terry departed and Zouma still in rehab?

Perhaps, at relatively small fees, such purchases were considered no-risk. Fees of £4m or £2.7m could be considered small change in the money-flushed world of a club regularly competing in the Champions League. Yet, when around 60 “senior” players report back to Cobham in the summer, the squad through which Conte will sift will appear crammed with faded champions, underachievers, stopgaps, prospects and even journeymen. Pinpointing a clear strategy aimed at restoring the team to the pinnacle may be easier said than done.

“We have disappointed ourselves so this is a moment when everybody has to be really motivated,” said Ivanovic while victorious PSG players drifted past him towards the exit. “This motivation cannot be just for the next couple of months. It has to be for a long, long, long period.”

The fear is Chelsea’s route back will be that tortuous. It would certainly be easier for them to spiral further out of contention than clamber swiftly back to the top.